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Better elections in MA with Approval Voting

Approval Voting is a simple tweak to our current choose-one voting method where you vote for one or more candidates and the highest total determines the winner.

Problems with Choose-One Voting

Note: Our current voting system (Choose-One aka Plurality Voting aka First Past The Post, FPTP) limits support to one candidate.

• Incentivizes tactical voting based on who seems most electable, often the lesser of two evils, rather than who represents voters honestly.
• Reinforces a two-party system with a highly polarized electorate and negative campaigning.
• Increases the big-money influence of billionaires and corporate PACs who can focus on swinging an election to one side or the other.
• Discourages more candidates from running due to the spoiler effect wherein candidates with overlapping supporters are penalized by vote-splitting.
• Often elects winners with narrow support, thus obscuring the will of the people. Without a mandate, leaders cannot confidently or accurately govern.
• Suppresses the popularity of 3rd parties and alternative candidates. Furthermore, election polling that mimics the choose-one ballot reinforces existing power dynamics.

Why use Approval Voting instead of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) ?

Note: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) as promoted by Voter Choice MA simulates multiple rounds of Choose-One runoff elections and so is also known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

• Simplicity
  • Approval uses the standard ballot and is tabulated by summing the votes for each candidate. Many at-large councilor elections already use an Approval-style ballot.
  • RCV requires a new ballot and the instant runoff process it simulates is more complex both conceptually and practically. It can also be hard for voters to rank a large field of candidates.
• Cost
  • Approval is compatible with existing ballot designs and voting equipment, needing only a change in ballot language: “Vote for one or more.” Voter education would be minimal.
  • RCV uses more ballot space per candidate. So often, multiple pages must be printed. Also, many jurisdictions would need new voting equipment to process ranked ballots. There would be significantly more voter education necessary.
• Spoiler Effect / Vote Splitting
  • Approval eliminates the spoiler effect and greatly reduces the risk of vote splitting.
  • RCV is still prone to the spoiler effect and vote splitting when alternative candidates are viable (not easily eliminated). This is unsurprising when one considers how RCV simulates multiple rounds of choose-one runoff elections.
• Honesty / Tactical Voting
  • Approval allows voters to honestly vote for and against candidates. Voting for a preferred candidate never hurts their chances and never helps a disliked candidate. Bullet voting remains a valid method for some voters to honestly express their support of a favorite candidate.
  • With RCV, ranking a candidate better or worse can have the opposite effect on their chances. Ranking your favorite first under RCV can cause your least favorite to win.
• Expressiveness
  • Approval allows voters to express up-or-down preferences for any or all candidates. All approvals are tallied and reported in the final results, so even if your favorite candidate loses, at least you’ll be able to see their overall level of support. Once enacted, it could later be replaced by a more expressive, yet more complex cardinal method like Score Voting or STAR Voting.
  • RCV ballots limit the number of candidate rankings (typically three to five) due to space constraints. Even if you feel similarly (positive, negative or ambivalent) about some candidates, you must still rank them sequentially. And unless your preferred candidate(s) are eliminated, your other thoughtfully considered rankings are simply ignored.
• Risk of Ballot Spoilage / Exhaustion
  • An Approval ballot allows the voter to mark any or all candidates without messing it up.
  • An RCV ballot can easily be spoiled if the voter ranks multiple candidates equally or they skip a ranking sequence. Furthermore, if the voter does not rank a finalist (perhaps due to limited rankings), then their ballot ends up “exhausted”, meaning it does not count toward the final result.
• Risk-limiting audits / Hand recounts
  • Approval ballots (like Choose-One) are precinct-summable, so election officials can audit results on a local level for irregularities. Hand recounts would be straight-forward.
  • RCV ballots must be tallied centrally, so audits are harder to conduct. An election hacker would only need to disrupt the central system to change the result. Hand recounts would be a lengthy process. So in terms of security, RCV is even worse than Choose-One.
• Voter satisfaction
  • Approval yields higher voter satisfaction (lower Bayesian Regret) than RCV (aka Instant Runoff Voting) according to simulations by mathematician Warren D. Smith. Note, other methods can achieve marginally greater satisfaction, but only with additional complexity and cost.
  • RCV / IRV degenerates to Choose-One Voting (aka Plurality Voting) under fully tactical voting. Claims that RCV guarantees a majority winner are misleading as explained by Aaron Hamlin in The Majority Illusion: What Voting Methods Can and Cannot Do.

How do we enact Approval Voting in MA?

• Regulations against over-votes (voting for more candidates than open offices in a race) with paper ballots and electronic voting could be changed by the Secretary of the Commonwealth or by state legislation, either state-wide or at the local level (via home-rule petition or a local option). Ask your state rep or senator!
• Approval could be used in a primary followed by a top-two runoff or used alone without a runoff.
• Advocate for voting reform with Approval in your city or town, especially during a charter review process.
• Encourage your group or organization to use Approval for voting on things like endorsements – and then let us know!
• Get the word out about Approval on social media and/or letters to the editor.

Further Reading

• An Assessment Of Six Single-Winner Voting Methods
• Approval Voting FAQs
• Approval Voting vs. RCV
• Read Getting Proportional With Approval Voting and watch this Proportional Approval Voting video to learn how to calculate it in a spreadsheet
• St. Louis Case Study – Approval successfully used in the 2021 St. Louis Mayoral Primary
• Ten Critiques of Approval Voting
• Was Ranked Choice Voting Really a Success in NYC?
• What Makes a Good Voting Method
• Check out the Library and Further Reading pages from The Center for Election Science.

About

Mass Approves is a chapter of The Center for Election Science. The chapter is being volunteer-organized by @BarryRafkind (he/him) who lives in Somerville, MA and Robin Chen @rschanche (she series) who lives in Cambridge, MA.

Email: info@massapproves.org